1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a loading/unloading control apparatus of a semiconductor device and a control method thereof in which the time for loading/unloading a semiconductor device for testing can be reduced.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, some properties, such as an electric property, of a produced semiconductor device is tested by using a test device. At this time, a handler is used for transferring a semiconductor device to a test device. After the test is completed, the semiconductor device is classified according to capacity level.
FIG. 1 is a plan view of a conventional handler. As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional handler 100 comprises a chamber 110, and a working table 120 having an apparatus for loading or unloading the device to a chamber 110 and for classifying and stacking the semiconductor device.
The chamber 110 includes a heating chamber for heating a fed semiconductor device, a test site mounted with a test device for testing a heated semiconductor device, and a cooling chamber for cooling the semiconductor device received from the test site.
Therefore, the semiconductor device is transferred to the heating chamber thereby to be heated at a test temperature, the heated semiconductor device is then tested by the test device provided at the test site. Next, the tested device is transferred to the cooling chamber to be cooled by a constant temperature so that the semiconductor device is classified and stacked by a picker according to the result of test.
On the working table 120 a supply tray 122 is placed for stacking the semiconductor device to be tested. A classifying and stacking portion where a plurality of sorting trays 121 are positioned is formed on one side of the supply tray 122 so as to classify and stack the tested semiconductor device.
The semiconductor device received at the supply tray 122 is sucked by a X-Y axis picker 44 provided with a suction nozzle 44a so that the semiconductor device is moved in X-axis and Y-axis direction along guide axis 125 and 126 thereby to be transferred to a loading buffer 123a. Next, the semiconductor device sucked by the suction nozzle 53a is transferred to an aligner 124 by a loading picker 53 moving in X-axis direction along the guide axis 127 thereby to be loaded to the test tray not shown. The test tray serves to connect the semiconductor device to the test device through the chamber 110.
The tested device is unloaded to the aligner 124 thereby to be transferred to an unloading buffer 123b at the state of being sucked by the suction nozzle 63a of an unloading picker 63 moving in X-axis direction along the guide axis 127.
Accordingly, the semiconductor device is classified and stacked at the sorting tray 121 based on the test characteristics by the X-Y axis picker 44 thereby to completing the loading/unloading.
However, the conventional handler 100 having the above constructions has problems. The sorting tray 121 is required to be replaced in order for the tested semiconductor device to be classified and stacked to the sorting tray 121, the X-Y axis-picker 44 should wait until the sorting tray 121 is completely replaced. Therefore, the unloading work is delayed thereby causing an increase in time for classifying the semiconductor device.
Furthermore, in the case when the X-Y axis picker 44 is selectively used for loading/unloading the semiconductor device, the unloading picker is under non-working state when the semiconductor device is first loaded to the test site. The picker for loading the semiconductor device becomes stopped at its working state when the semiconductor device is unloaded.
Furthermore, the X-Y axis picker 44 repeatedly supplies a semiconductor device served at the supply tray 122 to the loading buffer 123a so that the test device loads the semiconductor device to be tested. After all the semiconductor devices are served at the tray 122, they are then transferred to the loading buffer 123a, the supply tray 122 is replaced with a new one.
However, the X-Y axis picker 44 is under a standby state during the time the tray 122 is replaced. Accordingly, the semiconductor device can not be supplied during the replacing of supply tray 122 thereby causing the loading function not to be performed smoothly.